Roger Waters broadcasts cancelled in Germany over support for Israel boycott

Nov 29, 2017 at 12:00 AM

German public broadcasters have dropped plans to air concerts next year by ex-Pink Floyd musician Roger Waters, citing what they call “accusations of antisemitism against him”.

Waters, part of one of the world’s most critically acclaimed and commercially successful rock bands from 1965 to 1985 before going solo, is a member of the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) that targets Israel over its occupation of territories where Palestinians seek statehood.

“The Hassan Diab case is beginning to reek of the late 19th-century ‘Dreyfus Affair’ now that a fourth French judge’s order for Diab’s release for lack of evidence has been quashed at a higher level, and this Canadian academic and father of two small children begins his fourth year in solitary confinement in a French prison, without charge or trial."

Narrated by Roger Waters, this compelling and important film examines how the Israeli government, the North American governments, and pro-Israel lobbying groups have waged a series of coordinated PR campaigns to manage political fallout from Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestinian land and shape North American media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Israel’s favor.

“I don’t get why people cannot look straight at what’s happening in the occupied territories and see it for what it is,” Roger Waters said to a full house at St. Andrew’s-Wesley Church on Oct. 26. “There’s a word for what is happening there: ethnic cleansing.”

The event took place a few days before the end of Waters’ cross-Canada Us and Them Tour, the final leg of a North American tour that kicked off almost a year ago. The primary songwriter behind Pink Floyd albums like The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon was invited to speak by Independent Jewish Voices (IJV). Among talk sponsors were IJV, CanPalNet, Seriously Free Speech, Not in Our Name, and Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. Waters was interviewed by Martha Roth, co-chair of IJV Canada, and Itrath Syed, a professor at Langara College.

A few mindful lyrics from Roger Waters’ latest album, Is This the Life We Really Want?, draws us to be present and not absent from what happens around us.

That's what October 26 was like in a filled-to-capacity church in downtown Vancouver as Waters spoke about his music and passion for justice. At times dismissive, charged, and fervent, he laid out loud and clear his support for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in solidarity to end the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands by Israel.

Interview by Éric Hazan [New Left Review 32, March-April 2005]

“The Ramallah doctor and activist, general secretary of the Al Mubadara coalition, on struggles against the Israeli Occupation, from the popular movement of the first Intifada to the tactical errors of the second, via the disaster of Oslo. As Abu Mazen is levered into place, what alternatives can combat both IDF stranglehold and the flyblown Palestinian Authority?”